Now, posthumously, she and another soldier have been selected for the NCAA Award of Valor.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association named Lt. Perez and Maj. Doug Zembiec as posthumous recipients of the 2008 Award of Valor in a Jan. 13 ceremony in Nashville, Tenn. It will be televised at 2 p.m. Central Standard Time today on ESPN2.
Lt. Perez, a 23-year-old Medical Service Corps officer, was killed while leading a patrol when an improvised explosive device detonated near her Humvee. She was assigned to the 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division.
Rena Gunter of Belton, Lt. Perez’s grandmother, said her granddaughter came to visit her every summer of her childhood.
“When they lived in Germany and later when they lived in Maryland they put her on the plane and sent her for summer visits,” she said.
Mrs. Gunter said her granddaughter was only 4 when she began summer visits. The airline attendants would care for her on the flights, she said. Mrs. Gunter drove to Love Field in Dallas to pick her up.
“She was a child who had more books,” Mrs. Gunter exclaimed. “When all her friends were outside playing she would be in her bedroom reading.”
Sue Beene of Belton knew Lt. Perez as a child.
“She was a little doll,” Mrs. Beene said. “She was so quiet. People like that often like to be left alone.”
Published accounts describe Lt. Perez as driven academically and athletically. She was a top athlete in track and field at West Point and an equally gifted leader, according to Jonathan Smidt, athletics chief of staff at West Point.
Lt. Perez was the first ethnic minority female in West Point history to be named command sergeant major of the Corps of Cadets.
She was born in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1983 to Daniel and Vicki Perez. The family moved to Fort Washington, Md., in 1998. While still in high school Lt. Perez organized an HIV-AIDS ministry at her church. The American Red Cross later honored her as an AIDS educator.
After graduation from Oxon Hill High School she was accepted at West Point where she graduated in the top 10 percent of her class.
Mrs. Gunter said that when her granddaughter was stationed at Fort Hood with the 4th Infantry Division she came to live with her rather than live on post.
“When she would come home from work at night, she went to her bedroom and would read,” Mrs. Gunter said. “She didn’t go out much. It was no different than when she was a child.”
Mrs. Gunter said the week before her granddaughter was scheduled to deploy she received word from a medical facility in Washington that she was a match for a patient needing a bone marrow transplant.
She had registered as a donor sometime in the past, Mrs. Gunter said.
“She flew up there and donated marrow, then flew back and was gone to Iraq,” Mrs. Gunter said. “She believed in helping other people.”
According to the organization, the NCAA Award of Valor is presented to a current intercollegiate athletics coach or administrator or to a current or former varsity letter-winner at an NCAA institution who when confronted with a situation involving personal danger acted with valor.
